Agents' Mutual hits out at Zoopla and Rightmove ahead of January launch
Agents' Mutual, the new entrant to the UK online property portal industry, has criticised incumbent market leaders Rightmove and Zoopla, claiming that it will be a disrupter to its rivals when it launches early next year.
The comments came as Zoopla unveiled its annual results with operating profits rising by more than a third to £40m and traffic jumping to an all-time high of 513.5m website visits.
However, the group did caution about 19,663 members jumping ship to industry-owned Agents' Mutual, operating as OnTheMarket.com, which allows members to list on only one other property portal. OnTheMarket.com launches on 26 January 2015.
Agents' Mutual "may have some short-term impact on our agency membership numbers but we have seen numerous launches into our market before and taken effective action to compete with them", Zoopla said.
Ian Springett, the chief executive OnTheMarket.com, responded in a statement, saying that Zoopla and Rightmove have "failed to acknowledge the strength of the dissatisfaction felt by many estate and letting agents over the existing portal market duopoly".
"This is evidenced by the fact that thousands of agents have already signed up to switch from them and use the new portal when it launches on January 26th."
Springett claimed that the existing two market leaders will lose "significant" advertising business as his own company grows over the coming years.
“OnTheMarket.com is a mutual organisation with a mission to provide a first-class service to member agents, to their clients and to the broad property-seeking public. We'll be injecting much needed competition to the marketplace and we'll be providing consumers with a state-of-the-art search experience."